"Tack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... themselves on odd boxes lying about on the ice. Many who were accustomed to restaurants built tables of kerosene cases and dined al fresco. After the limited stew, the company fared on cocoa, biscuits—"hard tack"—and jam, all ad libitum. ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... down. As soon as the Constitution was ready, Hull bore down to bring the enemy to close action immediately; but, on coming within gunshot, the Guerriere gave a broadside and filled away and wore, giving a broadside on the other tack; but without effect, her shot falling short. She then continued wearing and manoeuvring for about three quarters of an hour to get a raking position,—but, finding she could not, she bore up and ran under her topsails and jib, with the wind on the ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... When Selina took this tack, of course her sisters were silenced. They quited her a little, and then went down and searched ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... for a moment, his eyes fought Kern, figuring chances. It was only the hesitation of an instant. The battle was lost before it had begun, and Arizona was clever enough to know it. Swiftly he turned on a new tack. He shoved his revolver back into the holster and ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... Bobolink, "seeing that you've made up your mind to reform after this, p'raps we might let you off easy, Bud. But the next time you get caught, oh! but you're going to get it. Better quit that crowd, and try another tack. Ted and Ward have all the fun, and you fellows take the drubbings. Think ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... wall. And see here, Pa," stooping to pick up a piece of cretonne from the rubbish on the floor—"this has been a paper holder—there's beads sewed on it around the flowers; and do you see yon little shelf? It's got tack marks on it; she's had a white curtain on it, with knitted lace. I know she has, and see, Pa"—looking behind the window casing—"yes, sir, she's had curtains on here, too. There's the tack. She had them tied back, ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... head," said King Charles; "they don't understand that sort of thing out there, and, besides, the idea is not original. Didn't Livingstone try that tack?" ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... helm and stood away on the new course the foe had taken, leaving the crippled ship astern very fast. And now we began to edge up towards the other vessel, meaning to go about under her stern, and so shoot to windward of her on the other tack. But then I thought of a plan which might help us in the fighting. There had seemed little order and much shouting on board the ship we had left when her sail fell, and maybe there was the same want of ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... opposed it, because the lords had already resolved by a vote, that they would never pass any bill sent up from the commons, to which a clause foreign to the bill should be tacked; and this clause they affirmed to be a tack, as an incapacity to hold employments was a circumstance altogether distinct from a settlement in money. The queen expressed uncommon eagerness in behalf of this bill; and the court influence was managed so successfully that it passed through both houses, though not without an obstinate opposition, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the schooner until it seemed that she would surely collide with the motor-boat. When scarcely more than a length Away from the Fortuna, the schooner was brought sharply about on the other tack. As she came about a clear cut whistle sounded shrilly in ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson
... hammer and carried a pair of steps, while Harlow bore a large piece of wallpaper which the two of them proceeded to tack on the wall, much to the amusement of the others, who read the announcement opposite written ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... he come himself?' she asked somewhat inconsequently, and going off on another tack at once. 'I can't understand how a man of any spirit can ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... strait where Helle fell, Catch in your sails the Northern breeze, And speed to Cos, where she doth dwell, My Love, and see you greet her well! And if she looks across the blue, Speak, gentle ships, and tell her true, 'He comes, for Love hath brought him back, No sailor, on the landward tack.' ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... he must make another tack to gain his point. Following letters noted no improvement in his health. Now, as the hunting season was near at hand, he found it convenient to bargain with a renegade doctor, who, for the consideration offered, wrote his parents that their son had recently consulted him to see if it would ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... get up but in vain. In the afternoon staggered up on deck—men stretched out on all sides looking as wretched as I felt—glad to get back to bed. Captain sent some frizzled ham and hard tack, with his compliments. Sea growing heavier ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... this news to me: but I was not discouraged at this news; not doubting but I should persuade them better when I should come to talk with them. So the next morning I weighed and stood towards the fort. The winds were somewhat against us so that we could not go very fast, being obliged to tack 2 or 3 times: and, coming near the farther end of the passage between Timor and Anabao, we saw many houses on each side not far from the sea, and several boats lying by the shore. The land on both sides was pretty high, appearing very dry and of a reddish colour, but highest on the Timor side. The ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... quantity; the springs become low, the rivers become less and less fitted for navigation. Yet habit blinds him for a long while to the real state of the case; and he continues to encourage a coming mischief in his dread of one that is become obsolete. We have been long making progress on our present tack; yet if we do not go about now, we shall run ashore. Consider the popular feeling at this moment against capital punishment; what is it but continuing to burn the woods, when the country actually wants shade and moisture? Year after year, men talked of the severity of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... his 'Spring Snow-Storm' (which nobody else had noticed till that moment), and said to the Prince, who was with me: 'The man has talent.' But genius—why, it's his wife who has genius! Have you never heard Grace play the violin? Poor Violet, as usual, is off on the wrong tack. I've given Fulmer my garden-house to do—no doubt Violet told you—because I wanted to help him. But Grace is my discovery, and I'm determined to make her known, and to have every one understand that she is the genius of the two. I've told her she simply must come to Ruan, and bring the best accompanyist ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... the Representative, as he chewed a tack awhile, thinking it was a clove. 'I want to find a boarding house where the proprietress was an orphan found in a livery stable, whose father was a dago from East Austin, and whose grandfather was never placed on the map. I want a scrubby, ornery, low-down, snuff-dipping, back-woodsy, ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... slightly different tack. Its editorial writer was a former New York newspaperman of unusual abilities who had been driven to the Southwest by tuberculosis. In an editorial which was deplored by many prominent business men, ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... of Wales? The devil's grandmother! Was the like ever heard?—Captain le Harnois to alter his course, the Trois fleurs de lys to tack and wear—drop her anchor and weigh her anchor, for a ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... Prior serves in truth, by his intervention and merits, take kindly pity upon us, who for our sins are justly set in so sore a strait." Needless to say the storm ceased at once, and Henry felt that he was indeed upon the right tack, both nautically and spiritually. Whatever view we take of this tale (storms being frequent, and fervent prayers of the righteous availing much), the historic peep into King Henry's mind is worth our notice. The simplicity and self-abasement ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... imperturbably, "Mrs. Kershaw was never requested to produce a specimen of her husband's handwriting. Why? Because the police, clever as you say they are, never started on the right tack. They believed William Kershaw to have been murdered; they looked ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... room after a while,' said Barstow, 'it'd be easy to tack more sheds on and run canvas over them, just the same as what we done. Me and Chuck would come up most any time and ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... Hob by Caroline Darrah on the other side; he's savage when he's crossed. And tack in Payt opposite her. I invited Polly the Fluff for you—she is a dbutante and such a coo-child that she'll just suit ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the irate face of his companion, in which the crow-feet of forty years were distinctly visible, and perceived that he had gone on a wrong tack. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... to the precariousness of our situation, by the cry of "land a-head!" which was seen from the forecastle, and must have been very near. Not a moment was now lost in wearing the ship round on the other tack, and making what little sail could be carried, to weather the land we had already passed. This soon proved, however, to be a forlorn prospect, for it was found that we should run our distance by ten o'clock. All the horrors of shipwreck now ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... "The pyramids—the bazaar—life—adventure. How wonderful!" There came a long, long pause, and then she added, as she turned towards a coloured picture of the Sphinx upon the wall, "And who cares if the nail is a tin-tack or a screw?" ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... I, "the time you put a tack in the seat of Cap'n Charles's stool, in his little shoemaker's shop out behind the house, and he gave you five cents, to return good for evil; so the next day you did it again, in the hope of a quarter, but he decided there were times when the Golden Rule is ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... a little holler, to the crick back o' town," said Curly. "You go on an' tack out your hide, an' I'll ride over and ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... make the mistake of heading directly for the shore, but sought to make it by a long tack, moving half with the current and half against it. The lad had made up his mind that the cowboys would never reach them and that what was to be done must be ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Texas - Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains • Frank Gee Patchin
... was running great risk. Our loss of anchors was now much felt for no sooner were we under sail than the wind died away; and from the heavy swell the cutter was so ungovernable that the vessel twice missed stays in endeavouring to tack in shoal water; fortunately the water deepened again on standing on, or nothing could have prevented our going on shore. After plying to windward for an hour the weather tide ceased; when the disadvantage of ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... "Grace used to be so busy every day, with fixing a curtain here and driving a tin-tack there; but she cares ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... guns of her other side not being even cast loose, she did not fire a single shot, while the Culloden passed triumphantly through. Scarcely had she broken the enemy's line, than the commander-in-chief signaled the order to tack in succession. Troubridge's manoeuvre was so dashingly performed, that the admiral could not restrain his delight ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... be on the wrong tack to abuse the Kellys. "I'm sure they're very nice people," said he; "indeed I always thought so, and said so—but they're not like your own flesh and blood, are they, Anty?—and why shouldn't you come up ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... he seemed to enjoy the experience, the other three bore their condition as well as they could without grimace or complaint, till the young man, observing their discomfort, gave immediate directions to tack about. On the way back to port they sat ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... appear considerably too long. To correct this, take your needle and thread, fasten the end round the bone inside, and then push the needle through the skin just opposite to it. Look on the outside, and after finding the needle amongst the feathers, tack up the thigh under the wing with several strong stitches. This will shorten the thigh and render it quite capable of supporting the weight of the body without the help of wire. This done, take out every bit of cotton except the artificial thighs, and adjust the wing-bones ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... instead of waning, as I had hoped. Our prosperous farm was given over entirely to the demands of his ship-yard, and when his sons, Shem, Ham and Japhet came along he directed all their education along lines of seamanship. He fed them even in their tender years upon hard-tack and grog. Up to the time when they were two hundred years old he made them sleep in their cradles, which he kept rocking continuously so that they would get used to the motion, and would be able to go to sea when the time ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... may glide along for weeks without starting tack or sheet, hardly moving the helm a spoke, so mild and constant are the Trades. At night, the watch seldom trouble themselves with keeping much of a look-out; especially, as a strange sail is almost a prodigy in these lonely ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... struck the water far short of the mark, ricocheted along the surface a few hundred yards farther, and finally exploded, throwing up a cloud of spray, but doing no harm to the brig, which never loosened tack or sheet, but held gallantly on her way. A moment after the shrapnel exploded, her flag—the old flag—fluttered out from under the lee of her spanker, and little puffs of smoke arose from her port quarter. Some of ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... encouraged by the eagerness of the bystanders, that gentleman was now rehearsing the history of his misfortune. It was but scraps that reached me: how he "filled her on the starboard tack," and how "it came up sudden out of the nor'nor'west," and "there she was, high and dry." Sometimes he would appeal to one of the men—"That was how it was, Jack?"—and the man would reply, "That was the way of it, Captain Trent." Lastly, he started a fresh tide of popular ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... fulminations against him, what did they want with the Church of Rome!—he, Louis David Riel, was going to start a church of his own! Yes, St. Peter had appeared to him in a vision, and told him that the Popes had been on the wrong tack long enough, and that he—Riel—was to be the new head of all things spiritual and temporal. He promised them a good all-round time when this came about, as it certainly ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... travelled about two miles, we saw the smoke rise from our old camp. The Mormons, after taking what goods they wanted and could carry off, had set fire to the wagons, many of which were loaded with bacon, lard, hard-tack, and other provisions, which made a very hot, fierce fire, and the smoke to roll up in dense clouds. Some of the wagons were loaded with ammunition, and it was not long before loud reports followed in rapid succession. We waited and witnessed the burning of the train, and then pushed on to ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... the subject rapidly exhausting itself and tried one more tack. "Yes, it's simpler than I supposed," I admitted, "but it doesn't seem quite an every-day thing to sell the Balaklava Coronal to anybody ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... stiff upon their Charter (PACTA CONVENTA, or whatever the name is); who wrangle much upon privileges, upon taxes, and are difficult to keep long in tune. Ten days ago (September 11th), her Majesty tried them on a new tack; summoned them to her Palace; threw herself upon their nobleness, "No allies but you in the world" (and other fine things, authentically, as above, legible in the Archives to this day):—so spake the beautiful young Queen, her eyes filling with tears as she went on, and yet a noble fire gleaming ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and I doubt whether it will go round soon enough to save us. If it should go round a little more to the north, we must try and get her on the other tack; but I am afraid, in such a sea, she will not go about. Of course, our great aim is to reach Port Cornwallis; or, if we cannot get as far as that, I have just been having a look at the chart, and I see there are three narrow straits. How much water there ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... a fog, Captain," interrupted Pantry. "How can it be an old maid, when, on every tack, half a dozen children, like so many porpoises, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... stood on bravely, we could see that she was being jammed down gradually towards the shore. My good man cried out, 'that her fore-tack was shot away and it would ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... things shows there was a friendly feeling toward me from the first. After having thus expressed himself, he directed me to print my name on each of four pieces of paper, and to tack them up in certain places in the room, which he indicated to me. I did this several times before I could please him; but at last succeeded. Another corporal visited me during the day and declared everything out of order, although I had not touched a single thing after once satisfying the ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... the Proserpine, for Ithuel was right as to the name of the stranger, had got within a league of the entrance of the bay and had gone about, stretching over to its eastern shore, apparently with the intention to fetch fairly into it on the next tack. The smoke of her gun was sailing off to leeward in a little cloud, and signals were again flying at her main-royal-mast-head. All this was very intelligible to Raoul, it being evident at a glance that the frigate ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that there was almost not six hours of sunlight in the day; and the wind was very powerful, so that the sea was very fearful to see, without ever being smooth either by day or night, but they always met with storms, so that the crews suffered much hardship. After a month that they had run on this tack, they stood into shore and went as long as they could, all praying to the Lord that they might have doubled beyond the land; but when they again saw it they were very sad, though they found themselves ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... morning of April 24,1895, was fair, at noon I weighed anchor, set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all winter. The twelve-o'clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A short board was made up the harbor on the port tack, then coming about she stood seaward, with her boom well off to port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer on the outer pier at East Boston got a picture of her as she swept by, her flag at the peak ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... doorway to the next room appeared a stocky little woman, whose pale face was made emphatic by large steel-rimmed glasses that shrank each eye-pupil to the size of a tack-head. Her worried forehead ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... our staterooms, but by sunrise we were glad to dress and escape from their suffocating heat and go on deck again. Black coffee and hard-tack were sent up, and this sustained us until the nine-o'clock breakfast, which was elaborate, but not good. There was no milk, of course, except the heavily sweetened sort, which I could not use: it was the old-time condensed and canned milk; the meats were beyond everything, ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... your haul, Cap'n Billy Daddy?" The man sighed. "You wouldn't let those dreadful old sharks—they are sharks, Cap'n—you wouldn't let them hurt your poor little fish, now would you?" The rippling, girlish laugh jarred Billy's nerves. He must take a new tack. ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... declared the Widow, but as no one contradicted her, she took a different tack. "Are you coming back?" she asked, smiling brightly. "Are you going to ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... he might up with the top-gallant masts of his heart, and out with his rejoicing pendants; for as to Miss Emily, he had clapped her helm aweather, the vessel wore, and now she was upon the other tack, standing right into the harbour of his good-will. Peregrine, who was not yet a connoisseur in the terms of his lacquey, commanded him, upon pain of his displeasure, to be more explicit in his intelligence; and by dint of divers questions, obtained a perfect knowledge ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... that Corny had let herself out in this way, but I don't wonder she did it. The captain explained that the ship couldn't sail right to us, because the wind was not in the proper direction for that. She had to tack. If she had been a steamer, the case would have been different. We all sat and waited, and waved ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... answer? Should she condole with the man because he had to work? It did not seem prudent! She would try another tack! ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... suspiciously at the French black, while he inwardly debated on the possibility that he had become suddenly colour blind. Having reassured himself, however, that his vision was not at fault, he made a sudden decision and started on a new tack. ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... themselves as though these were mere venial faults; but as to eating meat on a Friday! That is quite another thing; they are persuaded that this is the unpardonable sin. To them their stomach is the Holy Ghost; consequently, the great point is to tack and veer round that particular sin, never to commit it, while only just avoiding it, and not depriving themselves in the least. What eloquence they will pour out on me to convince me of the penitential ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... the Rev. James McKenzie. The mutual though qualified respect which they felt for each other dated from their first meeting, when Mr. McKenzie had walked into the saloon and asked permission to tack up some bills ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... huskily. Again there was no hand-shaking; but as they reached the front door, Benjamin Wright called to Dr. Lavendar, who stepped back into the library. Mr. Wright had put on his hat, and was chewing orange-skin violently. "It ain't any use trying to arrange anything with—So I'll try another tack." He came close to Dr. Lavendar, plucking at the old minister's black sleeve, his eyes snapping and his jaws working fast; he spoke in ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... glaze. Twice masses of fallen rock blocked the way, and the horses had to be unhitched and the wagons dragged into the stream bed. It was heavy work, and when they camped, ferociously hungry, no fire could be kindled, and there was nothing for it but to eat the hard-tack damp and bacon raw. Leff cursed and threw his piece away. He had been unusually morose and ill-humored for the last week, and once, when obliged to do sentry duty on a wet night, had flown into a passion and threatened to leave them. No one would have been sorry. ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... I mounted the poop and made as keen a scrutiny as I could of everything on board. Everything appeared as usual. The Chancellor was run- ning on the larboard tack, and carried low-sails, top-sails, and gallant-sails. Well braced she was; and under a fresh, but not uneasy breeze, was making no less than ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... after a gentleman in a glazed cap and black raiment, we had suffered change into base assassins, the offscouring of society, starving for want of employment, and willing to "imbrue our coarse fists in fraternal blood" for the sum of eleven dollars a month, besides hard tack, salt junk, and the hope of a Confederate States bond apiece for bounty, or free loot in the treasuries of Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas, after the war. How carefully from that day we watched the rise and fall of United ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... degrees 55 minutes West; she was therefore about midway between the parallels of Madeira and Teneriffe, but some four hundred miles, or thereabouts, to the westward of those islands. The wind was blowing a moderate breeze from about south-east by South; and the ship, close-hauled on the port tack, and with all plain sail set, to her royals, was heading south-west, and going through the water at the rate of a good honest seven knots. The helmsman was steering by compass, and not by the sails, since it was impossible to see anything above ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... happened to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks before and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time she would be away down wind on another tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment—but only just a moment—then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation," ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... of our nation's natal day At the rise and set of sun, Shall boom from the far north-east away To the vales of Oregon. And ships on the seashore luff and tack, And send ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... passing it within forty-eight hours. The Lords, indeed, were not likely to regard it very favourably. But it should seem that some desperate men were prepared to withhold the supplies till it should pass, nay, even to tack it to the bill of supply, and thus to place the Upper House under the necessity of either consenting to a vast proscription of the Tories or refusing to the government the means of carrying on the war, [552] There were ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... weakness and disappointments, we set to work in earnest, and persevere steadily, we often find, that, though obliged continually to tack, we make more way than others who have the assistance of wind and tide; and, in truth, there can be no greater satisfaction than to keep pace with others or outstrip ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... paid Port dues for your Law," quoth he, "and where is the Law ye boast If I sail unscathed from a heathen port to be robbed on a Christian coast? Ye have smoked the hives of the Laccadives as we burn the lice in a bunk, We tack not now to a Gallang prow or a plunging Pei-ho junk; I had no fear but the seas were clear as far as a sail might fare Till I met with a lime-washed Yankee ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... tack-hammer the combination was readily solved, and an eager examination of the contents of ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... your powers of invention. You know there's no such story going about or everybody here would have cut me dead. Try another tack." ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... know, I voun' Tom Dumpy's cwoat an' smock-frock, down Below the pollard out in groun'; An' zoo I slyly stole An' took the smock-frock up, an' tack'd The sleeves an' collar up, an' pack'd Zome nice sharp stwones, all ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... succeeded in getting to windward of the island, but the signal to the Discovery to tack having been omitted she stood on, and it was some days before she rejoined company. January 1779 was ushered in with heavy rain, but clearing away before noon they were able to approach to about five miles from the shore, where they lay to and traded with ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... trade, would be secure with the galleys, for there are no winds there, as a rule. The tide allows the ships to enter and leave by three straits, the broadest of which is very narrow, for only one ship can tack in it. That strait is not the one generally used, but the other two. I am assured that in both the ends of the yards of the galleons brush through the trees ashore. I wrote in regard to this matter, in the year of 30, by Admiral Diego Lopez Lobo, whom ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various
... brown, hair streaming. One had baby in her arms; two small girls and a boy. One of women Steve's mother. Dirty place, but better than the chilling fog. Glad to get in. Fire started. Stove smoked till room was full. Little old lamp, no chimney. We made coffee and gave coffee and hard-tack to all. Women went into other room with children. We spread tarpaulin and blankets, and lay on floor; so did Steve. ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... with the spring fleet she went out The English Channel to cruise about, When four French sail, in show so stout Bore down on the Arethusa. The famed Belle Poule straight ahead did lie, The Arethusa seemed to fly, Not a sheet, or a tack, Or a brace, did she slack; Though the Frenchman laughed and thought it stuff, But they knew not the handful of men, how tough, On board ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... the machining interrupted the conversation, which thus was renewed from time to time in the pauses of the noise. The room being "tidied," Mrs. Somerville sat down on the bed and taking up some pieces of cloth began to tack them together with needle and thread, ready for the machine. It never seemed to occur to her to rest even ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... schooner. To the great surprise of those who were watching her, her bow began to swing slowly around, her sails trembled in the air for a minute or two and then moved over to the other side, her yard was braced forward, the sheets hauled taut, and she was off on the other tack with a big bone in her teeth. By this move she hoped to pass so far astern of the suspicious-looking craft in front of her, as to be beyond range of the light guns her captain had reason to believe were concealed under ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... Josey's nothin' but a meanderin' old idgit!" he thought angrily: "'Ere 'ave I been an' took 'im for a wise man wot would know exackly 'ow to begin and ask for the sparin' of the old trees, and if he ain't gone on the wrong tack altogether and made the poor little lady cry! I think I'll do a bit of this business myself while I've got the chance—for if I don't, ten to one he'll be tellin' the story of the wopses' nest next, and a fine oncommon ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... of peace or pain; For fortune's favor or her frown; For luck or glut, for loss or gain, I never dodge, nor up nor down: But swing what way the ship shall swim, Or tack about ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... sea was running, and it was agreed to keep along under the lee of the shore until they could obtain a view of the Bay of Antium, and see if the fleet of Fieschi was still there. If so, they would tack and run back some distance, and make straight out to sea, so as to pass along four or five miles from the shore, as it would be unlikely in the extreme that the Genoese admiral would send a galley out to overhaul a ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... battle, Sir J. Jervis, by carrying a press of sail, came up with them, passed through their fleet, then tacked, and thus cut off nine of their ships from the main body. These ships attempted to form on the larboard tack, either with a design of passing through the British line, or to leeward of it, and thus rejoining their friends. Only one of them succeeded in this attempt; and that only because she was so covered with smoke that her intention ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... hungry til we waz free an' de Yankees fed us. We didn' have nothin to eat 'cept hard tack an' middlin' meat. I never saw such meat. It was thin an' tough wid a thick skin. You could boil it allday an' all night an' it wouldn' cook dome, I wouldn' eat it. I thought 'twuz mule meat; mules dat done been shot ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... these pleasant dreams by stepping on a tack that penetrated his shoe at a place where a patch was much needed, and then he appeared to see for the first time his friends, who were anxiously waiting for him to complete his survey of ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... dear, some women would have took the wrong tack an' would have argyfied with him. There's never no use in argyfyin' with a husband, an' never no need to, 'cause if you're set on it, there's all the rest of the world to choose from. When he'd talked himself hoarse an' was beginnin' to calm down ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... dat you'll hatter gi' 'im credit fer, an' dat wuz keepin' his face an' han's clean, an' in takin' keer er his cloze. Nobody, not even his mammy, had ter patch his britches er tack buttons on his coat. See 'im whar you may an' when you mought, he wuz allers lookin' spick an' span des like he done come right out'n a ban'-box. You know what de riddle say 'bout 'im: when he stan' up he sets down, an' when he walks he hops. He'd 'a' been mighty well thunk un, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... indeed! He topographised and typographised King Priam's dominions in three days! I called him 'classic' before I saw the Troad, but since have learned better than to tack to his name what don't belong ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... sales letters the writers have taken exactly the opposite tack. They have slung language in the fashion of a circus publicity agent, and by their verbal gymnastics have attracted attention. This sort of thing may do very well in some kinds of circular letters, but it is quite out of place in the common run of business correspondence, and a comparison of ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... all felt that unless Providence listened to the prayers and imprecations which the whole town set to work with frantic zeal to hurl at it, or that abominable comet in the sky sheered off on another tack with the least possible delay, we should all be reduced to cinders in a very ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... for sure! Them dratted tacks! Your Mar said we was to put in a tack here and there between the rings, and there was a saucerful just there. Somebody has knocked it over, I expect, and ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the sailing-master. "I'm afraid we shan't get round the point this tide, unless we lay her off on the other tack." ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins
... inquired his grandfather. "A man that you've seen all the politicians catering to the last day or so, and small enough to bandy insults with a snippet of a girl! Well, bub, there's a lot of childishness in human nature. It breaks out once in a while. Cuss a tack, and grin and bear an amputation! We'll let the girl alone. I don't seem to get in right when she is mentioned. But I wanted to have you tell me that you don't intend to marry Dennis Kavanagh's daughter. You can't afford to do that, boy! Not with your prospects. And now I'm not saying ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... yer can't always read them," said Journeyman; "an accident will send you off on the wrong tack, so it all comes to the same ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... work," said Mrs. Graves; "he ought not to dangle about at home and at Cambridge; he wants tougher material to deal with; it's no use snubbing him, because he is on the right tack; but he must not be allowed to interfere too much. He wants a touch of misfortune to bring him to himself; he has a real influence over people—the influence that all definite, good-humoured, outspoken people have; it is easier for others ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... say to you more? You see how I am forced to tack paragraphs together, without any connexion or consequence! Shall I tell you one more idle story, and will you just recollect that you once concerned yourself enough about the heroine of it, to excuse my repeating such a piece of tittle-tattle? ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... [To MOZGOVOY] Young man! Now suppose the ship is lying by the wind, on the starboard tack, under full sail, and you've got to bring her before the wind. What's the order? Well, first you ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... answered her. He contented himself with winking behind the old woman's back, and turning over on his other side—the only movement of which he was now capable. He called this exercise a "tack to the north" or a "tack to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... the tiger comin', for he turned as pale as death; but he didn't look at him, and never stirred tack or sheet. He stuck right on to the spokes, and steered her as true as a die; and well he did, for if he hadn't, we'd a broached to in five seconds, and that would a been wuss than the tiger. Well, the cussed beast went close up to him, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... great image contemplated the dead ages as calmly as ever, unconscious of the small insect that was fretting at its jaw. Egyptian granite that has defied the storms and earthquakes of all time has nothing to fear from the tack-hammers of ignorant excursionists—highwaymen like this specimen. He failed in his enterprise. We sent a sheik to arrest him if he had the authority, or to warn him, if he had not, that by the laws of Egypt the crime he was attempting to commit was punishable with imprisonment or the bastinado. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... come to blows, the superior nimbleness of his own ship would more than counterbalance the advantage conferred upon the other by her greater weight of metal. The stranger, when she cleared the land, was close-hauled on the larboard tack, heading about south-south-east, and it was judged, from her position relative to the land, that she had not actually touched at the island, but had simply availed herself of its presence to gain a few miles by turning to windward in the smooth water under its lee. The discovery of the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... you were na slack; Now stand as tightly by your tack: Ne'er claw your lug, an' fidge your back, An' hum an' haw; But raise your arm, an' tell ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... saw; A pretty rising knee—O knee! It is as round as round may be; The full flank makes the buttock round: This palfrey standeth on no ground, When as my master's on her back, If that he once do say but, tack:[229] And if he prick her, you shall see Her gallop amain, she is so free; And if he give her but a nod, She thinks it is a riding-rod; And if he'll have her softly go, Then she trips it like a doe; She comes so easy with the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... said he, grinning again and looking down with mock pity at the pumps I wore, which were guiltless of even the smallest tack, being all sewn, as I held up the soles for his inspection. "Then, all I can say is I'm sorry for you! I really didn't think you were deformed—and such a ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and wiped her eye, Then went o'er hill and dale, And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should, To tack to each ...
— The Baby's Opera • Walter Crane
... with reeds, and which, previous to the war, were inhabited, and yielded vast quantities of grain. We usually landed to cook breakfast, and then went on quickly. The breadth of water between the islands was now quite sufficient for a sailing vessel to tack, and work her sails in; the prevailing winds would blow her up the stream; but I regretted that I had not come when the river was at its lowest rather than at its highest. The testimony, however, of Captain Parker and Lieutenant Hoskins, hereafter to be noticed, may be considered conclusive as ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... produce conviction on the subject of tools. I resolved to try another tack. "What do you ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... plucky and a able young feller, by the name of Graham, and he kep' her a-dancin' as well as the old man would have done. Constant she had everythin' put to her that she'd bear, and always were she kep' on the tack where she'd make the most westin', and so she struggled along till we was as far as thirty degrees west, we bein' thirty days out and not yet half way. Every day we asked the steward how old Wiggins were a-gittin' ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... I fancy everyone else thought the same. However, we held on straight towards her. She fired a gun and hoisted Spanish colours. At that time we were almost abreast of her, and Cochrane, who had the American colours ready, ordered them to be run up. This gave us time to get on to the other tack, and hold on till a little out of her direct line of fire. Then we at once pulled down the stars and stripes and hoisted the British ensign. The Spaniard fired a broadside, to which we made no reply. Our guns were trebly shotted, but Cochrane had given orders ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... is, a system which was based on percentages of kernel and penalties for empty nuts or flavor, and other things which could not be effectively measured. And they quit with that system and started out on a new tack. And to do that we got Dr. Atwood, who is head of the Department of Plant Breeding Genetics at Cornell, to go through some extensive tests which he applied as a biometrical statistical method, to find out what is the sample which will ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various
... longer; never dreaming that my moralist would proceed to extremities, while all hands were present. But bethinking him that by going this roundabout way he would never get at his object, he went off on another tack; apprising me, in substance, that he was instructed by the whole mess, then and there assembled, to give me warning to seek out another club, as they did not longer fancy the society either of myself ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... however, but began to feel the want of bread. I remember that in passing around to the left of the line on the 21st, a soldier, recognizing me, said in rather a low voice, but yet so that I heard him, "Hard tack." In a moment the cry was taken up all along the line, "Hard tack! Hard tack!" I told the men nearest to me that we had been engaged ever since the arrival of the troops in building a road over which to supply them with everything they needed. The cry was ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... judges expound them, juries weigh and measure them with offences, then executioners carry them into effect. The farmer hath already sown the hemp, the ropemaker hath twisted it; sawyers saw the timber, carpenters tack together the shell, grave-diggers delve the earth. And all this truly ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... tack is the same as westerly Variation. Leeway on the port tack is the same as easterly Variation. This is apparent ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper
... Cox sid of the post house? boath bound In A bond of A hundred pound for the parish of Ockley to pay one pound for the bewrall of William Drew In case he dy In bed lam and Ly wise to pay the Surgant for Cure of his sore Legs and Lychwise to tack Drew out when cured which sayed Drew was put In by Henry Worsfold and Edward Bax ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... your patient in that respect," cried Anne, taking another tack. "If Leslie had asked you if anything could be done for him, THEN it might be your duty to tell her what you really thought. But you've no ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Some governments had publicly stigmatized the Bolshevists as cutthroats; one had pledged itself never to have relations with them, but the Prinkipo invitation bespoke a resolve to cancel these judgments and declarations and change their tack as an improvement on doing nothing at all. The scheme was also an error in substance, because the sole motive that could warrant it was the hope of reconciling the warring parties. And that hope was doomed ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... puzzled one day by an anonymous letter telling him he was all on the wrong tack; it was not a Trade job, but contrived by a gentleman for his private ends. Advantage had been taken of Little being wrong with the Trade; "but," said the letter, "you should look to the head for the motive, not to ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... men had finished what they had come to Sunkhaze to do. They climbed aboard the huge ice-craft. The sheet was paid off, and with dragging peavey-sticks instead of centerboard to hold the contrivance into the wind, the boat moved away on its tack across the lake. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... practical demonstration to supplement the information in their textbooks. On the Friday afternoon chosen for the ramble everybody started armed with hammers of all varieties, from Miss Roberts's beautiful geological pick to stout tack hammers and ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... as Mr. Walters did, get a cup of coffee and a hard-tack; that'll go way ahead of nothin' if ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... what, gentlemen,' replied Brass, in a very grave manner, 'he'll not serve his case this way, and really, if you feel any interest in him, you had better advise him to go upon some other tack. Did I, sir? Of course I ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... known where it always come from. If their hearts had been full of the dinner He gave the five thousand hungry men and women and children, they wouldn't have been uncomfortable about not having a loaf. And so they wouldn't have been set upon the wrong tack when He spoke about the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees; and they would have known in a moment what He meant. And if I hadn't been too much of the same sort, I wouldn't have started saying it was but reasonable ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... carefully using marking ink or a regulation tag. If a tag, tack with small tacks on the top of the box. Write your own name and address on the tag distinctly as the sender. Be as careful of the tacks as you were of the nails. Always get a receipt from your express agent if shipping by express ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... leeward, and desirous of obtaining the weather-gage, as the safest situation for his own ship, he carried a heavy press of sail, and in the night of the 14th, having stretched on, as he thought, sufficiently for that purpose, put the Loire on the same tack as they were. About two A.M., it being then exceedingly dark, he found himself so near one of the largest ships as to hear the officer of the watch giving his orders. As the noise of putting about would have discovered the Loire's ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... York came for Aileen. Mrs. Champney tried another tack: the next time her nephew came to Flamsted, later on in the autumn, she asked him to write her in detail concerning his intimacy with her cousins, the Van Ostends, and of their courtesies to him. Champney, nothing loath—always keeping in mind the fact that it was well to keep on the right side ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... "but keep up a good heart, like a sailor hard upon a lee shore, and all 'll be bright and sunny in a day or two. And now we'll just make a tack down the bay-street-and sight the Maggy. There's a small drop of somethin' in the locker, that'll help to keep up yer spirits, I reckon—a body's spirits has to be tautened now and then, as ye do a bobstay,—and the wife ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... this 12,000 came to stay in New York City. The number of immigrant Jews during those months was 15,233, of whom only 3881 went farther. The population of the Ghetto passed already 250,000. It was like trying to bail out the ocean. The Hirsch Fund people saw it and took another tack. Instead of arguing with unwilling employees to take the step they dreaded, they tried to persuade manufacturers to move out of the city, depending upon the workers to ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... knew you when I saw you first!" responded Larry, his sails filling on a fresh tack with characteristic speed. "It's not as light as it used to be. I'm not sure that ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... implies ongoing activity but at a reduced level or in spare time, in contrast to mainstream 'back burner' (which connotes benign neglect until some future resumption of activity). Some people prefer to use the term for processing that they have queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that one can often fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in creative work). Compare {amp ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... saddles, and P. Loesch keeps a meat-market, with a sign representing one gentleman holding a mad bull by a bit of packthread tied to his horns, while an assistant leisurely strolls up to annihilate the creature with a tack-hammer. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... Common are the protected remains of a stake known as Jacob's Post. A stranger requested to supply this piece of wood with the origin of its label would probably adventure long before hitting upon the right tack; for Jacob, whose name has in this familiar connection a popular and almost an endearing sound, was Jacob Harris, a Jew pedlar of astonishing turpitude, who, after murdering three persons at an inn on Ditchling Common and plundering their house, ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... describe an ellipse the longer diameter of which is 8 inches, and the distance between the foci 5 inches. Insert a pin or small tack loosely in the hole between 6 and 7, which is distant 6-1/2 inches from O. Pass the needle through hole 5, allowing the thread to pass around the tack or pin; draw it tightly and fasten it in the slit or clip at the end. Lay the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... anything about it. And I don't see that it matters. If we beat them, all right; if they beat us, all right. The main thing is to play the best we know how and get as much fun and profit as we can out of the game. I don't care a brass tack about any of the games except Claflin and Chambers. I would like to beat Chambers, after the way they mussed us up last year. By the way, fellows, I got word from Detweiler this morning and he says he will come about the first of November and put in ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Charlotte, and Hunter, raking them with her starboard guns, and engaged the Detroit, which, being raked in all directions, soon became unmanageable. The Niagara then bore around ahead of the Queen Charlotte, and hauling up on starboard tack, engaged that ship, giving at the same time a raking fire with her larboard guns to the Chippewa and the Little Belt, while the smaller vessels, closing to grape and canister distance, maintained a most destructive fire. This masterly ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... said, in answer to my question. "I reckon you think a fine-lookin' rose like that ought to have a fine-soundin' name. But I never saw anybody yet that knew enough about roses to tell what its right name is. Maybe when I'm dead and gone somebody'll tack a French name on to it, but as long as it grows in my gyarden it'll be jest grandmother's rose, and this is how ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... went and did it," Sparrowhawk said solemnly, and then emitted a series of chuckling noises. "We laid over, starboard tack, and I pinched the Emily against the spit. 'Go about,' Captain Munster yells at me; 'go about, or you'll have me aground!' He yelled other things, much worse. But I didn't mind. I missed stays, pretty as you please, and the Flibberty drifted down on him and fouled ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... I trust sufficiently to your sincerity to tell me that you would rather not have me if my individuality would trouble or bother you too much.—Before that, I shall have the honor of sending you a little work, to which I have had the audacity to tack a great name—yours.—It is an instrumental De profundis. The plain-song that you like so much is preserved in it with the Faburden. Perhaps this may give you a little pleasure, at any rate, I have done it in remembrance of some hours passed ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... to take another tack, I guess. Tell Spotty I'll arrange to have him bailed. It'll be easy on a mere theft charge. But how in thunder am I going to get Darcy off if I haven't any one ...
— The Diamond Cross Mystery - Being a Somewhat Different Detective Story • Chester K. Steele
... scarcely spoken when the fish took another tack, dragging poor Giant toward the shore, some distance above the camp. Snap and Whopper hurried in the direction, and as the little youth managed to get a footing near the beach they ran in up to their ankles and dragged him to safety. Then all three began to haul ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... of it last night, but you came up here by a track fit for a lady's pony-carriage. My predecessor engineered it to connect his two places of business. In its way, it's the most palatial thing in the Rockies—two long legs with a short tack between, gentle all the way—and it brings you out by the Necropolis gate. You can ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... strangers. Our concern is with the Vincejo, a brig of eighteen guns, commanded by Captain Long, which happened, from her position, to be the most advanced in the chase. She was standing off-shore on the larboard tack, with her head to the south-west, when the chase was discovered somewhat to leeward, standing nearly due west, with the wind on her starboard-quarter. The latter was a smart-looking ship of 600 or 700 tons, displaying no colours; though from the course ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... coastguardsmen are on the alert. They had followed the vessel with anxious looks for hours that day as she struggled right gallantly to weather the headland and make the harbour. When they saw her miss stays on the last tack and drift shoreward, they knew her doom was fixed; hurried off for the rocket-cart; ran it down to the narrow strip of pebbly beach below the cliffs, and now they are fixing up the shore part of the apparatus. The chief ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... canvas, turn the canoe over. Lay the canvas with the centre line along the keel. Stretch it well by pulling at each end, and tack it through the middle at the extreme ends with a few tacks in a temporary manner. Put in temporary tacks along the gunwale at moderate intervals, stretching slightly, and endeavor to get ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... these walrus herds on the ice, braying and roaring till the surf shook, acted as a fog-horn to Cook's ships, and kept them from being jammed in the ice-drift. Soon two-thirds of the furs got at Nootka had spoiled of rain-rot. The vessels were iced like ghost ships. Tack back and forward as they might, no passage opened through the ice. Suddenly Cook found himself in shoal water, on a lee shore, long and low and shelving, with the ice drifting on his ships. He called ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... Regent’s Inlet, and for three days we were struggling with the young ice to little or no purpose, now and then gaining half a mile of ground to windward in a little “hole” of open water, then losing as much by the necessity of bearing up or wearing (for the ice was too strong to allow us to tack), sallying from morning to night with all hands, and with the watch at night, two boats constantly under the bows; and, after all, rather losing ground than otherwise, while the young ice was every hour increasing ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... had an accident," shouted the other, suddenly off on another tack. "It was awful. Trina was in the swing there—that's my cousin Trina, you know who I mean—and she fell out. By damn! I thought she'd killed herself; struck her face on a rock and knocked out a front tooth. It's a wonder she didn't kill herself. It IS a wonder; it is, for a fact. Ain't ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... behold like a Spanish great galleon and an English man of war; Master Jonson (like the former) was built far higher in learning, solid but slow in his performances. Shakespear, with the Englishman of war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and take advantage of all winds by the quickness of his ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... what I've noticed: People are quite on the wrong tack in offering less than they can afford to give; they ought to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... came through the ordeal "almost as hard as shott." Only the biscuit, apart from the butter and cheese, possessed the quality of softness. Damp, sea-water, mildew and weevil converted "hard" into "soft tack" and added another horror to the sailor's mess. The water he washed these varied abominations down with was frequently "stuff that beasts would cough at." His beer was no better. It would not keep, and was in consequence both "stinking and sour." [Footnote: ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... of Noah's ark, as there is no one to take the place of Noah. In other lines trade may follow the flag, but in the Noah's ark industry it follows a belief in Noah and is known to every flag that has ever waved, paying allegiance to no particular banner. Before these fatiguing divines drive even a tack into Noah's coffin, let them provide us with a personage of equal interest and influence. If they are not permitted to move further in their scheme of destruction until they do this, Noah is safe. They can only try to kill; they ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... said Dickie, in a low whisper; "you will soon hear the tack of a hammer that was never forged of earthly iron, for the stone it was made of was shot from the moon." And in effect Tressilian did immediately hear the light stroke of a hammer, as when a farrier is at ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... way with them always. They do all our work for us,—sailing either on one tack or the other. That is their use in creation, that when we split among ourselves, as we always do, they come in and finish our job for us. It must be unpleasant for them to be always doing that which they always say should never be ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... he gets the worst of it any way, for there is a pin in that rose, and if he goes to smell the mayflowers underneath he will find a thorn to pay for the tack he put in my rubber boot. I know he will play me some joke to-night, and I mean to be first if I can," answered Molly, settling the artificial wreath round the orange-colored ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... fabulous birds gazing at the sky. By day in the distance they look like enormous pieces of fireworks; they turn, stop, curb and slacken their speed, break the silence by their dull and monotonous tick-tack, and when by chance they catch fire—which not infrequently happens, especially in the case of flour-mills—they form a wheel of flame, a furious rain of burning meal, a whirlwind of smoke, a tumult, a dreadful magnificent brilliance that gives one the idea of ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... imagine. Nobody could. He talked a blue streak. And the things he said! He asked what he was made of, and how God got the eyes in. He told about somebody's having a tooth out and went into dreadful details. And then he got off on a worse tack, and asked Archie where his wife was, and when Archie said he wasn't married, he sighed and looked so sorry, and said: 'Wasn't you ever marwied, Archie? Not even once?' He simply spoiled our morning. It wasn't so much what he did say, as what we thought he might be going to. We had to turn ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... counties as "luke," the largest as "great," and the intermediate sizes as "long small," "threepenny" and "middleboro." White and buff rods are more carefully sorted, the smallest, about 2 ft. or less, being known as "small tack," and rising sizes as "tack," "short small," "small," "long small," "threepenny," "middleboro" and "great." Rods of two to three years' growth, known as "sticks," are used to form the rigid framework of the bottoms and lids ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... examined the room once more; but as it was far neater than her own, she could not reasonably find any fault there, so started on a new tack. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry |
